Posts made by dondoolee

What is your prefered opening strat Vs UK (if you have one)?

@Fighter:

@Subotai:

I usually only buy IC regularly with Japan. I prefer to buy more expensive hardware rather than building IC to spam infantry. But in some (+NO) games UK can trade France, and so they have mucho money to spend on anything they like.

If UK can take france then the IC in norway would probably have even less effect and only be icing on the cake. Alternatively if UK is constantly loosing ipc because on a growing japan beast, then the IC would probably still cost so much that you would have trouble filling an extra transporter (5 transporters i minimum 30) and even less 5,5 transporters if you wanna exploit the increased capacity full.

I think he is saying that Germany was allowing him to trade france, and he could not establish a foothold on it.

@bugoo:

One thing I have been thinking about alot lately is all the varied limitations on each of the nations and various unique ways to exploit them.

For example, Germany’s biggest weakness is its production limit.  Unless G builds an IC they can only build 10 units a turn, and to complicate this G1 is a really bad round to build said IC.  Because of this, even when making large amounts of cash, Germany is really pressed when trying to stack france, trade territories, build up to take russia, and keep enough air units to threaten allied fleets.  It seems the best way to exploit this weakness is to force G to trade a large number of territories every round, and/or to bombard the crap out of them.

Italy is limited mainly by income.  It is difficult to gain a large income with Italy and to sustain it.  It is interesting though how Italy can really help make up for germany’s weak point by building inf for france and/or trading a territory or two for them.  I think this is why in a KGF it is so important to reduce Italy’s income quickly with a strike on Africa and/or SBRs.

Japan is just plain slow.  This is why so many players ignore her.  Japan cannot truely threaten Russia until turn 4-5, same with a true threat in africa or a polar express.  The really funny thing is that buy building in the pacific as the US you negate Japan’s weakness as you allow her to have an effect on the game much earlier than she normally could.

Russia just doesn’t have any time.  She is pressured on turns 1-4 by germany, and after than by Japan, making it very difficult to get offensive.  It is too easy to overextend with too many units into china, or toward India, or pushing against Germany.  It is also difficult to defend so much territory thanks to the can opener threat, and Japans 3 approaches at you.

The UK is so spread out, and while you have alot of cash turn 1, in the mid game you really struggle income wise, this makes your turn 1 purchase so very important.

US I think is similar to Japan, except you don’t get much stronger as the game goes on like Japan.

Any thoughts?

Germany’s problem is production and getting a decent supply line to the USSR in time

US and UK is the fact that they have to sink so much in boats to be effective, essentially throwing away like 75% of their income.  UK is also spread out and can get hit very hard by te axis

Russia has the problem of starting with no offensive firepower, being stuck on land next to Germany/Italy which it just simply can not match in production, has to be VERY CAREFUL about not spreading the line to thin, has to worry about a double hit with Italy/Germany (so it may not be able to lay down 1 or 2 man buffer zones).

Italy is simply a sidekick

Japan has time issues, getting to Russia at a relevant time

@Subotai:

If UK has a lot of money, it can be well spent on an IC in Norway and building ground units to send to Russia first, and later towards Germany through eastern Europe.

What % of your games does the UK have that high of an income to build a factory right next to it’s capital where the game isn’t pretty much a lock for an Allied victory?

If you built a T1 factory on Poland I think you hurt Germany too much, you may be one step closer to the eastern front, but you will still have to keep probably 6-9 units on poland and 8-10 units on Germany, and x amount of units on France the enitre time now to keep your IC’s and France protected, this doesnt really help Germany I don’t think. Also you spend 1/2 income on a unit that can not take land, defend land, move, or kill enemy units.  This will give instantly give the USSR and UK MAJOR relief for thier T1 strats (particularly if you opening moves were even only mildly unlucky).

Thus far the only use I have seen for an early german IC is one on france for a turtle or naval strat, and even that is questionable.

@SewrRatt:

So last night I played a game of AA50 in which the germans built nothing but tanks. 6 on G1, 9 on G2 and then 10 after. I failed miserably in the atlantic, but with just germany’s starting tanks plus the tanks from G1 and G2 (a total of 22), and whatever other units survive to accompany them, Germany can just plow right through to Russia and on G4 kill practically any force Russia can muster. I tested it out with TripleA and even with a crazy conserve infantry strategy, the only build for those three turns Russia can do that will save Moscow is 10 infantry/turn. If you build offensive units in any quantity you lose. So if Germany does this the only thing Russia can do is turtle with infantry, having no offensive power whatsoever, and Germany can just waltz around taking Karelia, Caucasus and all the land around Moscow. Anyone have any ideas about how to counter this? The only thing I can think of is pressuring Germany as fast as possible with UK/US, but with strong tank forces being built in Berlin every turn and all the russian land Germany can take quickly, I’m not sure they can do anything fast enough.

Depending on the breaks the Allies get on T1 sometimes it can’t really be counterd.

But if Germany is really gunning for Russia, the best thing to do is UK1 pull all forces that can reach into Persia (hopefully Egy fig and Arm as well) and move them in the Cauc if you need to for round 2, build a fleet that can not be sunk on T2 and start pumping guys through Fin/Nor/Kar/Poland to help the USSR, don’t worry about Russia’s NO.  On USA T1 build a fleet that can not be sunk, and if you feel you can a transport and a bomber.  Move the US fleet toward Africa so you are simultaneously threating France/Italy/Balkans/Africa.  Build bombers if you have the luxury to and keep SBRing Italy.

As for Russia, if it keeps falling T4, remember it can only hold 2 fronts (Example it can only defend the Caucaus and Moscow while having to sacrifice Karelia) if under severe pressure, the most deadly thing Russia can do is over-extend, this can set it up for a nasty 1-2 Italy/Germany punch.  If you can on T1 or 2 stack as much you can afford to stack in Belrussia or E UK to create a good deadzone, this may slow down Germany’s attack a little bit.

good thought with the AA, I just wonder if it hurts Germanys production capacity and takes too long to get them to the front.  I’ll have to try it.  If nothing else it is a very intersting and intriguing concept

@critmonster:

An effective KBF is, in reality a neuter Britain first. Starve them and regulate them to their island and then they become a non factor allowing you to take moscow or (more fun) D.C. almost at your leisure. Since there are more territories to dance around in Asia and North America. If you really want to take London out you have to 1-2 them with Italy/Germany (oer even 1-2-3 if Japan is over there). Japan shoud be hammering USA though for it to work.

100% agree. Thus far the UK is harder for a K*F strat to than even the USA.  However, one can hit them hard in terms of wittling thier economy down to the point of irrelevance.  If you do insisit on killing UK first I do think Japan really has to be aggresive on USA, and its secondary target would be India.  I also think Italy may actually be the key to taking the UK down.  Germany would do a T1 navel build to really keep UK out of africa, after that airforce and keeping Russia at bay while Italy grows/ hurts UK in Africa while building up an invading force.

@Imperious:

it depends on his air units that he can bring. If I am Germany and in Russia, i prefer 2 if the Soviets do not have air units, because it forces them to commit more to take it and liquidates his offensive pieces. So if i have air and my opponent does not i prefer 2. If i am on the other side i use 1 or even none depending on if i want to get him to waste a tank to try to blitz. This depends only on whether i can retake, because income is counted only after you make your moves, so losing the spot is not troublesome in most cases.

Same here, this is why I try to build as many air units as I reasonably can with the USSR.  I usually end uo with somewhere between 1-4 in '41, depending on the game.

@Zhukov44:

@dondoolee:

@Twigley:

Imagine in Round 1 the UK buy bombers - you know they’re coming for you…

Well it depends - if Germany took Egy - then you can take TJ and your ships are out of UK bomber range.

I would then by a fighter.

Who knows what the UK does next go? She could keep buying bombers - but 4+ seems extravagant - especially as Russia needs a break; so she opts to use her Rnd 1 buy SBRing and buys other stuff. Navy, IC whatever. At this point already Japan will begin eating into the British Empire in the east.

Round 2 Buy an AC, bring your BB, cruisers, transport back and drop 2 Fghtrs onto the carrier.

From now on drop troops onto North Africa. If you are getting NO’s maybe buy alternate combinations of destroyers, subs, and inf/art couplets. At that point Italy’s navy is very powerful.

Should the Germans have an IC in France then it is possible that a careful German sub building campaign (in Baltic/Med) could come together in a big way later in the game with Italian naval back up…

I am just confused as to why people think not building any land units for 2 turns would be beneficial for the Axis.  Not only that you are building a purley defensive unit that defends just as much as a destroyer unless you force airplanes on it, not only that but a jap carrier can be sent there in 2 turns, not only that but German airplanes/surviving subs can provide better protection and more flexability than a very expensive unit (by Italinan standards).  Carriers are just not good buys for the Western Axis, particulary Italy.

As far as the 4 bombers, Its still usefull in slowing down Germany because of the SBR’s.  A little excessive, yes, but the real point was if the Allies value the Italian navy that much the navy is dead.  The whole point of the Western theater that must be rememberd is that it is designed for the Allies to rule the ocean and still have enough to take out Germany/Italy.  That is just the mechanics of the game.  If that wasn’t the case than the game could not be winnable for the Allies.  That is not to say Italy should never build a naval unit ever, just probably not on t1  or t2 particularly something as economicaly devestating and useless to her as a CV.

Yeah I gotta agree.  If I was buying a carrier turn 1, I’m not sure where I’d find the units to accomplish my objectives in Africa and help protect France.  If the Allies are KGF then the Jap carrier is pretty much the only option IMO…but if the Allies are all or mostly on Japan its a different ballgame.

Yeah, a more KJF allied strat is for sure a different ballgame.

@Panzer:

@Perry:

I’m curious. Do you build boats with Italy?
What would the purpose of Italian ships be, and have you ever acheived anything valuable with the Ita fleet (other than having it wiped out mid-game by US).

I believe that an Italian fleet is very important and chances are the Axis will loose if they loose the Med and Italy’s fleet. A trick I have used on G1 (in 41 and 42 game) is to buy an IC on France right away. On Italy’s turn save all your money and move the whole fleet to south of France. Then on Germany’s turn buy several ships (dd, trans, & sub) to add to the fleet, so on UK’s turn there are too many ships for them to attack. Then on I2 buy a carrier and trans and try to take Egypt and/or Trans-Jordan. On G2 buy more ships and ground forces to move to Africa. Make sure all your transports (I & G) are always full going across every turn, even if just “bridging” to re-inforce. Work on getting all Italy’s NO’s ASAP and keep moving guys across and enlarging your fleet. If Germany can spare the money they could add their own carrier to the fleet and it starts to get real large. Do not buy a German fleet in the Baltic, add it to the Italian fleet, it lasts longer and makes it a lot harder for the allies. 8-)

That is still WAY more costly, less agressive (particularly on your Russian neighbor who does not need ships to threaten you), and less flexible than air units.

@Twigley:

Imagine in Round 1 the UK buy bombers - you know they’re coming for you…

Well it depends - if Germany took Egy - then you can take TJ and your ships are out of UK bomber range.

I would then by a fighter.

Who knows what the UK does next go? She could keep buying bombers - but 4+ seems extravagant - especially as Russia needs a break; so she opts to use her Rnd 1 buy SBRing and buys other stuff. Navy, IC whatever. At this point already Japan will begin eating into the British Empire in the east.

Round 2 Buy an AC, bring your BB, cruisers, transport back and drop 2 Fghtrs onto the carrier.

From now on drop troops onto North Africa. If you are getting NO’s maybe buy alternate combinations of destroyers, subs, and inf/art couplets. At that point Italy’s navy is very powerful.

Should the Germans have an IC in France then it is possible that a careful German sub building campaign (in Baltic/Med) could come together in a big way later in the game with Italian naval back up…

I am just confused as to why people think not building any land units for 2 turns would be beneficial for the Axis.  Not only that you are building a purley defensive unit that defends just as much as a destroyer unless you force airplanes on it, not only that but a jap carrier can be sent there in 2 turns, not only that but German airplanes/surviving subs can provide better protection and more flexability than a very expensive unit (by Italinan standards).  Carriers are just not good buys for the Western Axis, particulary Italy.

As far as the 4 bombers, Its still usefull in slowing down Germany because of the SBR’s.  A little excessive, yes, but the real point was if the Allies value the Italian navy that much the navy is dead.  The whole point of the Western theater that must be rememberd is that it is designed for the Allies to rule the ocean and still have enough to take out Germany/Italy.  That is just the mechanics of the game.  If that wasn’t the case than the game could not be winnable for the Allies.  That is not to say Italy should never build a naval unit ever, just probably not on t1  or t2 particularly something as economicaly devestating and useless to her as a CV.

@Emperor_Taiki:

@LuckyDay:

I know Emp.  I was just messing with you.  just couldn’t pass up the way you wrote the sentence. :-D

Separating of territories can work to display mountains, just as was tried by adding spaces in AA50 through Siberia to help with the speed of crossing.

In AA50 if Italy was split into 2=north and south/sicily or sicily separate.  Balkans was split in half to north/south yugo or even yugo and albania/greece and split Bulgaria/Romania into 2 as well. 
in AAR, or a redo of this map into AA42, my word, Southern Europe includes Italy, Yugo, part of Greece, Albania, part of Czech, then there is the ‘Balkans’, which is actually Romania, Hungary, part of Czech and Greece.  A revision of this into AA42 could split thses 2 territories into 4 and this would effectively create the mountainous feel based on the amount of extra time needed to traverse without special defend/attack rules based on the terrain.
  Even in a smaller maped game like AAR or AA42, some of these territories can be split up without overcrowding…

yah, I guess I agree. But if any new territries are added in AA42 I think it will be Bruma and maybe a third chinese, sigh.

I agree that if you want to “simulate” rough terrain it should be more done by map design movement than combat rules.  To me this captures the spirit of AA on a global level much more than special combat rules

I think representing China as a non industrial power could have been done by limited income and ltd production.  A china that makes only 5-9 ipc’sa turn on avg and can produce realisticaly only 2-3 units per turn and usually going to be on the defensive is not going to be building too many (if any) tanks, fig, or bombers.  It wouldn’t build any naval units assumint the IC was landlocked.

Besides airplanes built could be symbolic of Soviet and US fighters in China, and China did have a few Sherman tanks so it wouldn’t be out of the question for china

I love Italy as a seperate entity.  I think it adds a much more intersting game dynamic.  I also love the concept of China being its own entity, but as with everyone else, I feel they needed to modify the way China was dealt with in this game.  It feels cool to have two “minor powers” in the game, and Italy is fun to play simply because of that (obviously not China).

As far as if it helps or hurts Germany as a whole to have it divided up?  I am still unsure.  The is one MAJOR MAJOR advantage to having them seperate, and that is the ability to double hit Russia, or to keep Russia limited on movement and troop allocation.  This is one of the most frustrating things about playing Russia, is that you can no longer leave a “speed bump” to prevent your capital from being taken while you allocate forces elsewhere due to Italy being able to knock it out and open the door for Germany.

That and that alone is why I think it is somewhat plausible why Italy as a seperate power is more advantageous to the axis.

@Flashman:

But strategy was heavily affected by terrain considerations. The defeat of Germany was achieved by twin thrusts across the flat plains of northern Europe, while Churchill’s “soft underbelly” strategy of attacking through mountainous Italy was much slower and more costly.
Invading Norway should also be a more difficult proposition.
Regarding effects, tanks shouldn’t have 2 movement points in any case, but they should only attack at 2 against mountains. Similarly, artillery’s bonus to infantry should apply in defence of mountains, but not when attacking them.
We might consider applying infantry defence at 2 to DT only, and perhaps reducing the attack values of aircraft vs DT.

The way I understand AA to be when on the global scale, is a simple elegant design.  We are talking about very broad movement, not “my artilary is stationed in the mountains while your infantry is in a fox hole for this battle”.  This doesn’t and can’t go into consideration for a game on this scale, particularly a game that tries to keep things somewhat simple and streamlined.  If terrain is too much to deal with simply make it impassible (such as the Sahara or Mountains).  If the Allies invade Italy, we don’t know how they invade it, where they land, where they fight, or how they fight, or even how many battles are fought (perhaps the landing is actually symbolic of a series of battles that take place in the year that the turn represents) this game can not handle such a function well I don’t think.

And on a minor and more insignificant note:  Italy is harder to invade anyway due too its geographic position in AA.

@Subotai:

To build any German naval units is usually not helpful, and kill UK first will only happen as an AAR sealion project, means it’s only doable against players who have not played the game before  and is learning…

If Germany is doing fine during the first rnds and builds IC in France, and if the Italian navy is not killed before rnd3-4, I can see Germany dropping naval units in the south if the fleet can survive, but a heavy German naval strat is doomed to fail against decent allied players, b/c Russia will be too strong.

That is why I think if you want to advocate something crazy like a Kill UK first, Italy is the country you really have to look at.  Germany has to attempt to sink all the UK navy and probably do a T1 naval build big enough to distract the UK from Italy (subs or a carrier most likley) after that is has to make sure to build 1 air unit a turn to send to the West (hopefully bombers to keep SBRing UK/ keeping US transports at bay), while Japan has to go HEAVY towards the WUSA and if it can spare it India and Australia, to try and keep US out of Africa and hopefully hit some UK IPC’s, also you may have to get that Japanese Carrier to the Med as fast as possible.  Italy then would have to pray it can win enough to secure Africa and build a fleet in time to seriously threaten the UK, probably take Brazil in the process too.  You have to do this and hope somehow someway Germany can still stave off Russia and Japan can make some mainland in roads.  I don’t think it’s a good strat, but it is the best I can think of.

And if you think that is too much of a long shot, the only other thing I can think of is to once again have the Japs threaten the US as much as they can while still hopefully having enough to gain ground in asia.  But instead try to hit with Germany. You still shouldn’t start off with Navel builds.  The Germans have to build air at 1st I think to try and clear the Brits.  Then if you can pull off a double hit with Italy/Germany on the UK.  I think this is a bit more far fetched to an already far fetched strat, but still if you want to try something crazy…

Honestly kill UK first is just way too difficult.  A kill America 1st strat would even be easier I think.  Now if you want to do a cripple UK strat and make them irrelevant, that is much much more feasible.

For no good reason other than novelty I pick '41, even though the German T1 high probablity opening moves really set the entire tone of the game.  I really do think if AA does another “Delux Uber Edition” it may be the be all end all, this one has concepts that are very close to perfection.

@Fighter:

First the question:
Though the heading is specific regarding navy, the thoughts might apply more general.

Background for my question:
The situation is that in many of the games my group plays, USA will very often if not always research for minimum 15 pr round until they get Heawy bombers and long range aircrafts. If they don’t get a research on the chart for the 15, they use another 5 the following round to get 4 dices. In any case, as Japan who starts with a lot of navy it seems always (in our games) impossible to defend the navy, as a heavy bomber at the price of 12 has a good chance of killing a battleship at the price of 20. when one compares 2 heavy bombers to a fully loaded carrier the math gets even more crazy in favour of the heavy bombers. As for the long range aircraft, having 3 bombers or more in london and a similar amount in western USA, will actually enable them to strike an extremely large area with 6+ bombers.

I’m not one to say playing with tech is the devil, it is just a different game (though I usually only play with tech in like 20% of my games).  That being said, as USA (or anyone else for that matter) I would still rather spend my 1st 2-3 turns being less risky and getting more valuable peices on the board and in action and not dump money into tech in my average game.

No rough terrain should be more for tactical type games, A&A is a strategic game.  All you need to know is what terrain one can move through.